The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1887-09-01
REV. SAM JONES.
An Interesting Analysis OF Ills Wonderful
Powers.

An Interesting Analysis OF Ills Wonderful
Powers.
spent pleasant Sunday in July at
Lake View encampment and heard two
very effective sermons preached by Sam
Jones to an audience of 1000 people. In
the forenoon his theme was the final
Judgment. Not often is an audience
moved as was that one. In the evening
be preached on the high calling of the
Christian. A good many did not like
his evening sermon because in it he ex-
posed great deal of the hypocrisy
unconscious hypocrisy-that exists in the
church. Some, too, resented bis uncom.
promising advocacy ofprohibition. Re-
ferriDg to the action of Sandusky City
council in allowing intoxicants to be sold
on Sunday, he exclaimed: II would
not reside twenty.four hours in a town
where they deliberately passed Law
abrogating one of Gods laws. I would
not rear my family in such town. San
dusky, understand, has deliberately set
up to abrogate one of the enactments of
Almighty God! And yet understand,
too that more than half of the voters of
Sandusky are members of some christian
church. How do you account for that?"
Leaving to Sans congregation and to
as many readers of the Post as have a
facility for it the accounting for the
anomaly, let me set forth the replies I
received to another question which I
propouuded to two or three intelligent
and thoughtful men on the grounds that
day. What is the secret of Sam Jones'
eloquence His bodily presence is
weak. He has few or none of the graces
and motions of the orator as he is set up
by the schools. He employs few, if any,
of the devices of rhetoric.
Yet thousands will come to hear Sam
Jones to hundreds that would turn out
to hear Rev. G. n. Payne, D. d. L. L..
D, one of the orators of Methodism,
president of the Ohio Wesleyan univer.
sity, and a promising candidate for
Episcopal honors next May. This little,
plain, homely Georgia circuit rider has
the loadstone. Search him and find it.
One man to whom 1 put my question
was a teacher. He thought the secret Of
Sans attractive power lay in his fear.
lessness, directness and earnestness.
Another, teacher, preacher, and editor,
thought it lay in his sincerity, earnest.
ness, bravery aud the accidental help of
fame.
For my own part doubt that either
of these explanations covers the whole
case. What is the reason that of the
one hundred or more preachers of the
Georgia conference of the NJ. Z. church
only this one-this short, dark, homely,
black eyed, small-framed man-should
become known the world over as one of
the orators of the age? Why are the
ninety and nine back there riding their
bony ponies up and down the foot hills
of the Blue Ridge range as they pastor
their big circuits, while Jones rides in
palace cars from ocean to ocean, lives on
the fat of the land, and calls out to bear
him the people of continent? I find
the reason, first of all, in the fact that
he has something new to say, whether
you believe it or not, and that to hear
it you must go and hear him, for he
won't print it and send it to you.
The other day, in conversation with
Rev. DR.. Payne, he asked me why the
papers give columns to baseball and only
line-or not even line-to the gradu.
ating exercises of Ohio Wesleyan uni
versity.
Surely" said he, 'it is of more impor.
tance to the people of Ohio how hum
dreds of her sons and daughters 60 out
Of their long four.year drill.camp into
the great fight of life than how eighteen
men knocked a stuffed ball around a pas.
ture field for a couple of hours and then
quit to do the same inconsequent thing
the next day.
"Yes, DOCTOR" I replied, "but each
game does something, and that some.
thing is news. Each game results some.
how, and that somehow, problematical
till the close of the game, is news. You
graduate a class every year for hun.
dred years, and after all there is nothing
new in it. If you would send your
graduates up in balloons and let them
deliver their orations hanging in midair
from trapeze bar and then come down
in parachute, we would report it. We
would give you two columns in the Post
precious as its space is. In the same,
way, there is nothing else occurs on the
earth so important to it as the sunrise.
Now, if tomorrow mornings we're the
first or the only sunrise, re would have
reporters posted on every hill top OF
earth, and we would completely fill the
papers with the report of it TO the exclu.
sion of everything else. The sunrise is
no less important because the sun rises
every day, but because the sun rises every
day in the same old way, there is no news
in it, and it does not get even word. 1t
is not the importance of thing that
determines its news value"
So it is with Sam Jones preaching,
If he said what all other preachers say,
and in the same way that they say it and
had nothing new, he could not get q
corporal's guard to come out to hear him.
First, then, he says something new.
But so will fool or lunatic say some.
thing new, yet he will not command
attention. No one will 60 to hear him